I spent part of last Saturday working a shift at my local humanist group’s booth at the Columbus International Festival. I expected to enjoy it, but I was surprised by just how extremely happy I was to be sitting underneath a humanist banner, smiling at visitors, and stamping their festival “passports.” I really love situations where I can be openly non-theistic, especially without feeling as if I’m directly pushing on someone else’s belief system. I love the chance to portray atheism with a just smile rather than an argument.
There are valuable fights in the political sphere; there are lawsuits to be filed and debates to be won. I’m all for aggressively protecting our right to not be governed by others’ superstitions, of whatever variety. However, this sometimes feels like fighting symptoms rather than a root cause.
I think in the end we’ll come closer to winning the larger battle against superstition when a lack of theism becomes… well… normal in the eyes of the general population. It’s not always viable to be “out” in all spheres of life and I admire those who are more open about being atheist than I am. While I never pretend to be Christian, I’m also not interested in antagonizing myself out of my income and certainly wouldn’t consider myself “out” in the community where I run my small business. However, I think the more we can each do to expand the number of spheres where we feel comfortable expressing our lack of theism, the better off we’ll be as a whole.
The more often we drop the phrases atheist, non-theist, humanist, separation of church and state, and freedom from religion into everyday conversation, the more listeners become conditioned to hearing them. Those who know individual atheists are less likely to be nervous by us as a group. The more people who see us smile, laugh, work, raise children, vote, volunteer, eat pudding, and simply live, the more atheism becomes a non-threatening, viable, visible alternative to theism.
(cross posted at The Atheist Mama)
I think in the end we’ll come closer to winning the larger battle against superstition when a lack of theism becomes… well… normal in the eyes of the general population. It’s not always viable to be “out” in all spheres of life and I admire those who are more open about being atheist than I am. While I never pretend to be Christian, I’m also not interested in antagonizing myself out of my income and certainly wouldn’t consider myself “out” in the community where I run my small business. However, I think the more we can each do to expand the number of spheres where we feel comfortable expressing our lack of theism, the better off we’ll be as a whole.
The more often we drop the phrases atheist, non-theist, humanist, separation of church and state, and freedom from religion into everyday conversation, the more listeners become conditioned to hearing them. Those who know individual atheists are less likely to be nervous by us as a group. The more people who see us smile, laugh, work, raise children, vote, volunteer, eat pudding, and simply live, the more atheism becomes a non-threatening, viable, visible alternative to theism.
(cross posted at The Atheist Mama)
